Reform and Reconsideration I

 For Thursday:

• Schatzinger, ch. 7

Hamilton argues against representation by occupational category:

It is notorious that there are often as great rivalships between different branches of the mechanic or manufacturing arts as there are between any of the departments of labor and industry; so that, unless the representative body were to be far more numerous than would be consistent with any idea of regularity or wisdom in its deliberations, it is impossible that what seems to be the spirit of the objection we have been considering should ever be realized in practice.

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN DID LOBBYING.

And the First Amendment specifically protects the right to petition government:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Ethics Code for Lobbyists

Jack Abramoff and a partner charged Indian tribes about $85 million. They overbilled the tribes and split the proceeds. CNN summary:

• Starting in 2001, Abramoff persuaded a Louisiana tribe to pay nearly $30.5 million for "grassroots work" to a Scanlon company, which, in turn, kicked back nearly $11.4 million to Abramoff.
• In 2001 Abramoff also persuaded a Mississippi tribe to give nearly $14.8 million to Scanlon, who funneled nearly $6.3 to Abramoff.
• A Michigan tribe gave $3.5 million to Scanlon's firm in 2002; $540,000 ended up in Abramoff's pocket.
• Also in 2002, a Texas tribe gave $4.2 million to Scanlon, and nearly $1.9 million found its way to Abramoff
• According to e-mail obtained by a Senate committee, Abramoff made a fortune from the tribes while privately mocking tribal leaders as "monkeys" and "morons."
• In one instance, [Assistant Attorney General Alice] Fisher.Fisher told reporters, Abramoff took fees from one client, then worked for another client with competing interests. She did not identify the clients.

After Abramoff came reforms (Drutman 226) with loopholes, as National Journal reports:

The 2007 rules pre­vent a lob­by­ist for a cor­por­ate cli­ent from plan­ning or pay­ing for a law­maker’s trip. But the same rules al­low such a trip if it’s paid for by a for­eign gov­ern­ment. So while it does re­main il­leg­al for, say, a Google lob­by­ist to plan and ac­com­pany a law­maker on a free trip abroad, if that same lob­by­ist does so on be­half of Tur­key, it’s per­fectly leg­al. And if that lob­by­ist hap­pens to have both cor­por­ate and for­eign-gov­ern­ment cli­ents (as most do), they can still go abroad so long as it’s a coun­try and not a com­pany foot­ing the bill.

And that’s only one of the loop­holes the in­flu­ence in­dustry has ex­ploited to help law­makers score free travel. Today, a wide net­work of non­profits — many with a clear agenda and some with ex­cru­ci­at­ingly tight ties to Wash­ing­ton’s biggest lob­by­ing op­er­a­tions — are put­ting to­geth­er in­ter­na­tion­al con­gres­sion­al ex­cur­sions. Some of these pa­per non­profits have no staff or space of their own; they simply share with a sis­ter or­gan­iz­a­tion that lob­bies. Yet eth­ics of­fi­cials in Con­gress have deemed them to be in­de­pend­ent enough. In one in­stance, a lob­by­ist lit­er­ally re­gistered a new non­profit — in his own of­fice — that went on to pay for con­gres­sion­al travel abroad.

Big cor­por­a­tions bank­roll some non­profits, whose trips, in turn, can fea­ture stops at the busi­nesses of their cor­por­ate fun­ders. As a bo­nus, the grow­ing use of 501(c)(3) non­profits, which oc­cupy the same char­it­able rung of the tax code as soup kit­chens and the Amer­ic­an Red Cross, means that the wealthy and cor­por­ate donors un­der­writ­ing con­gres­sion­al travel can do so in secret and get a tax write-off along the way.

And who was the first person to go to prison?  JACK ABRAMOFF HIMSELF

Nathaniel Popper at NYT (6/25/20):

Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist whose corruption became a symbol of the excesses of Washington influence peddling, is set to return to jail for violating the law that was amended in response to his earlier crimes, law enforcement officials said on Thursday.

Prosecutors said Mr. Abramoff, 62, is the first person charged with flouting the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which was amended in 2007 after details of his earlier scheme, one of the biggest corruption scandals in modern times, emerged. He pleaded guilty to the lobbying violations and to criminal conspiracy for secretive and misleading work he did on behalf of cryptocurrency and marijuana projects, according to court documents.

Prosecutors in San Francisco said that in 2017, Mr. Abramoff secretly agreed to seek changes in federal law — and met with members of Congress — on behalf of the marijuana industry without registering as a lobbyist.

“Abramoff was aware of the obligations to register as a lobbyist in part because Congress amended provisions of the Lobbying Disclosure Act in 2007 in part as a reaction to Abramoff’s past conduct as a lobbyist,” court documents said. 

Revolving door loopholes

Transparency loopholes

Reform:  a low-priority issue for the public